March Madness pools are a form of sports betting based on the annual NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament each spring in the United States. The increasing interest in this event is fostered by March Madness pools, or brackets. A bracket is a form that can be completed on-line or printed out and completed by hand whereby the participant predicts the outcome of each game in the tournament. His or her predictions are compared against others in the pool, and whoever has the best prognostication skills wins the contest.

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Sixty-eight (68) teams line up with a chance to win the national title. It's not just the best 68 teams from among the more than 350 teams that play Division Ibasketball, though. Teams are split into 32 conferences, and each of those conferences has an automatic bid. Every conference plays a season-ending conference tournament, and gives the automatic bid to the winner.[1] The other 36 teams are chosen by a selection committee. They are called at-large bids, and they generally go to the 36 most deserving teams. Obviously it is a very difficult job to pick the 36 best teams, and the process is very subjective and can be very controversial.

The four lowest ranked automatic bid teams and the four lowest ranked at-large teams in the tournament play in special play-in games called the First Four before the tournament.[2] The rest of the field is split into four regions of 16 teams, and those regions are seeded from one to 16. The top team in each region plays the 16th team, the second plays the 15th and so on. The winners of each game goes on to the next round and so on until only one team is standing. A team is knocked out of the tournament and has to go home as soon as they lose once, so the pressure is incredibly intense.

Perhaps the biggest key to the tremendous popularity of the tournament is the bracket. The March Madness bracket is the grid of all the teams in the tournament and the path they have to follow to the Final Four and the championship game. Filling out a bracket with the winners of each of the 67 games in the tournament is an incredibly difficult task, and nobody has successfully filled out a perfect bracket. Odds of a perfect bracket are estimated to be 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (9.2 quintillion).[3] Some March Madness contests are free to enter, others require an entry fee. Many businesses utilize pool hosting services to run their pools, allowing them the flexibility to customize the pool rules and display.

March Madness has become one of the most popular sporting events in the United States.[4][5] Because of the length of the tournament and the number of teams involved it is one of the most popular sporting events in terms of television ratings. One event associated with March Madness is filling out the brackets. It has become extremely common in popular culture even among non-sports fans. It is estimated that millions of Americans participate in the contest every year. Mainstream media outlets such as ESPN, CBS Sports and Fox Sports host tournaments online where contestants can enter for free. Employers have also noticed a change in the behavior of employees during this time. They have seen an increase in the number of sick days used, extended lunch breaks and even the rescheduling of conference calls to allow for more tournament watching.[6] There are also many handicappers and pundits which offer advice for winning your bracket.[7][8]

1.
Sports betting
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Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome. Sports bettors place their wagers either legally, through a bookmaker/sportsbook, the term book being a reference to the books used by wagebrokers to track wagers, payouts, and debts. They take bets up-front, meaning the bettor must pay the sportsbook before placing the bet and this creates a number of other criminal elements, thus furthering their illegality. Examples are the 1919 World Series, the illegal gambling of former MLB player Pete Rose. Moneyline bets do not have a spread or handicap, and require the team to win the game outright. The favoured team pays lower odds than does the underdog, thus, sometimes a bettor may couple this type of bet on the favored team to increase the payout of a parlay. Spread betting are wagers that are made against the spread, the spread, or line, is a number assigned by the bookmakers which handicaps one team and favors another when two teams play each other and one is perceived as being more likely to win. The favorite takes points from the score and the underdog gives points. The line read, Miami -3, Oklahoma City +3, to determine who wins against the spread, the line is either added or subtracted from a teams final score. In the above example, if the bettor chose Miami, he would subtract 3 points from Miamis final score and compare that to Oklahoma Citys final score, If taking Oklahoma City, he will add 3 points to Oklahoma Citys final score. For him to win his bet, Miami would have to win the game by 4 points or more, and if a bettor took Oklahoma City, they would have to win outright or lose by less than 3 points. If the final adjusted score is a tie, the bet is considered a push and this is the most common type of bet in sports. Total bets are made based on the total score between both teams. Example, if an MLB game has a total of 10.5, an over bettor will want the combined total to be greater, If the combined total is the same as the proposed total, the bet is a push. Proposition bets are made on a very specific outcome of a match not related to the final score. A parlay involves multiple bets that rewards successful bettors with a greater payout only if all bets in the parlay win, a parlay is at least two bets, but can be as many as the bookmaker will allow. The possible payout of the parlay is determined by the likelihood of all bets placed. A parlay of riskier bets will pay greater than a parlay of more likely bets, a teaser is a parlay that gives the bettor an advantage at a lower, but still positive, payout if successful

2.
NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament
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The tournament was created in 1939 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and was the idea of Ohio State University coach Harold Olsen. Played mostly during March, it has one of the most famous annual sporting events in the United States. The tournament teams include champions from 32 Division I conferences, and 36 teams which are awarded at-large berths, the 68 teams are divided into four regions and organized into a single-elimination bracket, which pre-determines, when a team wins a game, which team it will face next. Each team is seeded, or ranked, within its region from 1 to 32, after an initial four games between eight lower-ranked teams, the tournament occurs during the course of three weekends, at pre-selected neutral sites across the United States. The Final Four is usually played during the first weekend of April and these four teams, one from each region, compete in a pre-selected location for the national championship. The tournament has been at least partially televised since 1969, currently, the games are broadcast by CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV under the trade-name NCAA March Madness. Since 2011, all games are available for viewing nationwide and internationally, such as in the Philippines, as television coverage has grown, so too has the tournaments popularity. Currently, millions of Americans fill out a bracket, attempting to predict the outcome of all 67 games of the tournament. With 11 national titles, UCLA has the record for the most NCAA Mens Division I Basketball Championships, the University of Kentucky is second, with eight national titles. The University of North Carolina is in place, with six titles, while Duke University. The University of Connecticut is sixth with four national titles, the University of Kansas and University of Louisville are tied with three championships. During that time Villanova, Michigan, UNLV, Duke, Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, Syracuse, the NCAA has changed the tournament format several times since its inception, most often representing an increase of the number of teams. This section describes the tournament as it has operated since 2011, for changes during the course of its history, and to see how the tournament operated during past years, go to Format history, below. A total of 68 teams qualify for the tournament played during March, thirty-two teams earn automatic bids as their respective conference champions. Of the 32 Division I all-sports conferences, all 32 currently hold championship tournaments to determine which team receives the automatic qualification. The Ivy League was the last Division I conference that did not conduct a tournament, through the 2015–16 season, if two or more Ivies shared a regular-season championship, a one-game playoff was used to decide the tournament participant. Since 2017, the league conducts their own postseason tournament, the committee also determines where all sixty-eight teams are seeded and placed in the bracket. The tournament is divided into four regions and each region has at least sixteen teams, the committee is charged with making each of the four regions as close as possible in overall quality of teams from wherever they come from

3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

4.
NCAA Division I
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Division I is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States. This level was called the University Division of the NCAA, in contrast to the lower level College Division. For football only, Division I was further subdivided in 1978 into Division I-A, Division I-AA, in 2006, Division I-A and I-AA were renamed Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision, respectively. FCS teams are allowed to award scholarships, a practice technically allowed. FBS teams also have to meet attendance requirements, while FCS teams do not need to meet minimum attendance requirements. Another difference is post season play, starting with the 2014 postseason, a four-team playoff called the College Football Playoff, replaced the previous one game championship format. Even so, Division I FBS football is still the only NCAA sport in which a champion is not determined by an NCAA-sanctioned championship event. All D-I schools must field teams in at least seven sports for men and seven for women or six for men and eight for women, with at least two team sports for each gender. Division I schools must meet minimum financial aid awards for their athletics program, Several other NCAA sanctioned minimums and differences that distinguish Division I from Divisions II and III. Each playing season has to be represented by each gender as well, there are contest and participant minimums for each sport, as well as scheduling criteria. Mens and womens teams have to play all but two games against Division I teams, for men, they must play one-third of all their contests in the home arena. The NCAA has limits on the financial aid each Division I member may award in each sport that the school sponsors. Equivalency sports, in which the NCAA limits the total financial aid that a school can offer in a sport to the equivalent of a set number of full scholarships. Roster limitations may or may not apply, depending on the sport, the term counter is also key to this concept. The NCAA defines a counter as an individual who is receiving financial aid that is countable against the aid limitations in a sport. The number of scholarships that Division I members may award in sport is listed below. In this table, scholarship numbers for head-count sports are indicated without a point, for equivalency sports, they are listed with a decimal point. An exception exists for players at non-scholarship FCS programs who receive aid in another sport, participants in basketball are counted in that sport, unless they also play football

5.
College basketball
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The history of basketball is traced back to a YMCA International Training School, known today as Springfield College, located in Springfield, Massachusetts. The date of the first formal basketball game played at the Springfield YMCA Training School under Naismiths rules is generally given as December 21,1891, Basketball began to spread to college campuses by 1893. Governing bodies in Canada include U Sports and the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association, each of these various organizations are subdivided into from one to three divisions based on the number and level of scholarships that may be provided to the athletes. The first basketball games in the United States were played at YMCAs in 1891 and 1892, by 1893, the game was being played on college campuses. The original rules for basketball were very different from todays modern rules of the sport, in the beginning James Naismith established 13 original rules, The ball may be thrown in any direction with one or both hands. The ball may be batted in any direction with one or both hands, but never with the fist, a player cannot run with the ball. The player must throw it from the spot on which he catches it, the ball must be held by the hands. The arms or body must not be used for holding it, no shouldering, holding, pushing, striking, or tripping in any way of an opponent is allowed. A foul will be called when a player is seen striking at the ball with the fist, or when violations of rules 3 and 4, if either side makes three consecutive fouls it shall count as a goal for the opponents. A goal shall be made when the ball is thrown or batted from the grounds into the basket and stays there, if the ball rests on the edges, and the opponent moves the basket, it shall count as a goal. When the ball out of bounds, it shall be thrown into the field. In case of dispute the umpire shall throw it straight into the field, the thrower-in is allowed five seconds. If he holds it longer, it shall go to the opponent, if any side persists in delaying the game, the umpire shall call a foul on them. The umpire shall be the judge of the men and shall note the fouls and he shall have power to disqualify men according to rule 5. The referee shall be judge of the ball and shall decide when the ball is in play, in bounds, to side it belongs. He shall decide when a goal has been made and keep account of the goals, the time shall be two fifteen-minute halves, with five minutes rest between. The side making the most goals in that time shall be declared the winner, the following is a list of some of the major NCAA Basketball rule changes with the year they went into effect. The first known college to field a team against an outside opponent was Vanderbilt University

6.
ESPN
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ESPN is a U. S. -based global cable and satellite sports television channel owned by ESPN Inc. a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the Hearst Corporation. ESPN broadcasts primarily from studio facilities located in Bristol, Connecticut, the network also operates offices in Miami, New York City, Seattle, Charlotte, and Los Angeles. John Skipper currently serves as president of ESPN, a position he has held since January 1,2012, as of February 2015, ESPN is available to approximately 94,396,000 paid television households in the United States. In 2011, ESPNs history and rise was chronicled by These Guys Have All the Fun, Bill Rasmussen conceived the concept of ESPN in late May 1978, after he was fired from his job with the World Hockey Associations New England Whalers. One of the first steps in Bill and his son Scotts process was finding land to build the channels broadcasting facilities, the Rasmussens first rented office space in Plainville, Connecticut. However, the plan to base ESPN there was put on hold because a local ordinance prohibiting buildings from bearing rooftop satellite dishes and this helped the credibility of the fledgling company, however there were still many doubters to the viability of their sports channel concept. ESPN launched on September 7,1979, beginning with the first telecast of what would become the flagship program. Taped in front of a live audience inside the Bristol studios. ESPNs next big break came when the acquired the rights to broadcast coverage of the early rounds of the NCAA Mens Division I Basketball Tournament. It first aired the NCAA tournament in March 1980, creating the modern day television event known as March Madness. The channels tournament coverage also launched the career of Dick Vitale. In April of that year, ESPN created another made-for-TV spectacle, the next major stepping stone for ESPN came over the course of a couple of months in 1984. During this time period, the American Broadcasting Company purchased 100% of ESPN from the Rasmussens, for years, the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball refused to consider cable as a means of broadcasting some of their games. However, with the backing of ABC, ESPNs ability to compete for major sports contracts greatly increased, later in 1984, the U. S. ESPNs Sunday Night Football games would become the highest-rated NFL telecasts for the next 17 years. In 1992, ESPN launched ESPN Radio, a sports talk radio network providing analysis. It became the fastest growing cable channel in the U. S. during the 1990s, ownership of ABC, and in effect control of ESPN, was acquired first by Capital Cities Communications in 1985, and then by The Walt Disney Company in 1996. In 2012, ESPN generated more revenue for Disney than any of its other properties combined, alongside its live sports broadcasts, ESPN also airs a variety of sports highlight, talk, and documentary-styled shows. 30 for 30 started airing in 2009 and continues airing to this day, each episode is through the eyes of a well known filmmaker and has featured some of the biggest directors in Hollywood

7.
CBS Sports
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CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on West 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City and its premier sports properties are the NFL, Southeastern Conference football, NCAA basketball, and PGA golf, including The Masters, and the PGA Championship. The online arm of CBS Sports is CBSSports. com, CBS purchased SportsLine. com in 2004, and today CBSSports. com is part of CBS Interactive. On August 31,2013, CBS Sports rolled out its previous graphics, on November 30,2015, CBS Sports released a new logo in order to coincide with the networks coverage of Super Bowl 50. The network also created a new graphics package that debuted as part of the networks Super Bowl week programming. Following the game, the package began to be utilized across all of their programming events. The Masters, which retains heavy production control over their event, also, the networks Thursday Night Football game broadcasts will continue to use the graphical style originally used since its debut in 2014. CBS Sports Radio is a radio network that launched on September 4,2012 with hourly sports news updates. It began offering a full 24-hour schedule of talk programming on January 2,2013. CBS Sports Radio is owned and operated by CBS Radio, a division of CBS Corporation, with Cumulus Media Networks handling distribution and marketing of the network. Sports radio stations that are owned by CBS and Cumulus Media carry part of the schedule of programming. In addition to carriage on stations, CBS Sports Radio also streams its programming on the internet. ESPN ESPN2 ESPN on ABC Fox Sports Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 2 NBC Sports NBCSN CBSSports. com CBS Sports Network CBS Sports Radio CBS Corporation CBS Sports CBS Corporation CBS Interactive

8.
Fox Sports
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These assets are held mainly by 21st Century Fox, with the exception of the operations in Australia, which are part of News Corp Australia. The name originates from the Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, the Fox Sports name has since been used in 21st Century Foxs and News Corps other sports media assets around the world. Fox Sports International, a sports programming and production entity of the Fox Networks Group. Fox Sports, is a Spanish cable television broadcasting to various Latin American countries. Fox Sports Norte, Venezuela, America Central and Rep. Dominicana Fox Sports Oeste, México Fox Sports Sur, Colombia, Perú, Bolivia, Fox Sports 2 Asia was launched in 2014, replacing STAR Sports. Fox Sports 3 Asia also was launched in 2014, replacing Fox Sports Plus HD Asia, Fox Footy primarily features the Australian Football League Fox Sports Brazil is a Brazilian sports channel launched on February 5,2012. Fox Sports 2 Fox Sports World Canada, a specialty channel primarily featuring soccer and other events around the world that operated from 2001 to 2012, Fox owned 20 percent of Sportsnet before selling it to Rogers Communications in 2004 but many of its content remains on that network. Fox Sports Caribbean, a channel aimed for Caribbean viewers. Fox Sports Chile, a specialty channel primarily featuring soccer and start broadcasting on November 11,2013 and in May 4,2015 is replaced by the channel Fox Sports 1. Fox Sports Italy is an Italian sports channel launched in 2013 alongside Fox Sports Plus and Fox Sports 2, Fox Sports and Entertainment began producing sports shows in 2013, which are broadcast in several Fox channels. Fox Sports, a group of channels owned by Eredivisie Media & Marketing which for 51% is owned by Fox International Channels Benelux. Fox Sports Eredivisie,3 premium channels and it holds the exclusive rights for the live matches of the Eredivisie, the highest Dutch football division. Fox Sports International,3 premium channels covering several European football leagues, Fox Deportes is a sports channel that broadcasts sports and is owned by Fox Entertainment Group and aired first on October 1,2010. On special sports game such as the World Series, Super Bowl, Fox Sports, sports division of the Fox Broadcasting Company television network. Fox Sports 1 is a sports network. Fox Sports 2 is a sports network. Fox Deportes presents sports programming in Spanish, News Corporation has also used the Fox Sports name in its other sports media assets. Foxsports. com, a web site operated by Fox Sports Digital Media, the Fox Sports College Hoops 99 basketball video game is published by their Fox Interactive division

9.
ESPN.com
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ESPN. com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc. ESPN. com also has partnerships with MLB. com, NBA. com, NFL. com, WNBA. com, MLSsoccer. com NHL. com, Baseball America, Golf Digest, Scouts Inc. Each section contains pages devoted to, scores, teams, schedules, standings, players, transactions, news wires, injures, the website was part of the MSN portal from 2001 to 2004. ESPN launched a Spanish language website in 2000, ESPN Deportes. com, the content of some ESPN. com articles is argued to have been plagiarized. ESPN started local chapters of its website in response to the decline of local sports coverage available as newspapers continue to go out of business across the country. Each page covers local professional and college teams, hiring locally known writers, in markets where the ABC Owned Television Stations owns a station, their sports coverage is incorporated with the corresponding ESPN local site. Some local sites have expanded into high school sports coverage

10.
Smithsonian (magazine)
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Smithsonian is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. The first issue was published in 1970, Thompson would later recall that his philosophy for the new magazine was that it would stir curiosity in already receptive minds. It would deal with history as it is relevant to the present and it would present art, since true art is never dated, in the richest possible reproduction. It would peer into the future via coverage of social progress and of science, technical matters would be digested and made intelligible by skilled writers who would stimulate readers to reach upward while not turning them off with jargon. We would find the best writers and the best photographers—not unlike the best of the old Life, in 1973, the magazine turned a profit for the first time. By 1974, circulation had nearly quadrupled, to 635,000, in 1980, Thompson was replaced by Don Moser, who had also worked at Life, and circulation reached upwards of two million, in turn, by Carey Winfrey upon his retirement in 2001. Smithsonian magazine provides in-depth analysis of varied topics within a range of scientific areas. Every year since 2012, the Magazine has sponsored the American Ingenuity Awards, winners have included Elon Musk, Lin-Manuel Miranda, OK Go, Dave Eggers, Aziz Ansari, Rosanne Cash, Jeff Bezos, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and David Lynch. Presenters have included Stephen Hawking, Stephen Colbert, David Byrne, Herbie Hancock, Erin Brockovich, Ruben Blades, Bill Nye, Art Spiegelman, the American Ingenuity Award itself was created by the artist Jeff Koons. Notable past and current contributors to Smithsonian have included, Official website

11.
Sports Illustrated
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Sports Illustrated is an American sports media franchise owned by Time Inc. Its self-titled magazine has over 3 million subscribers and is read by 23 million people each week and it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice. Its swimsuit issue, which has published since 1964, is now an annual publishing event that generates its own television shows, videos. There were two magazines named Sports Illustrated before the current magazine began on August 16,1954, in 1936, Stuart Scheftel created Sports Illustrated with a target market for the sportsman. He published the magazine from 1936 to 1938 on a monthly basis, the magazine was a life magazine size and focused on golf, tennis, and skiing with articles on the major sports. He then sold the name to Dell Publications, which released Sports Illustrated in 1949, dells version focused on major sports and competed on magazine racks against Sport and other monthly sports magazines. During the 1940s these magazines were monthly and they did not cover the current events because of the production schedules, there was no large-base, general, weekly sports magazine with a national following on actual active events. It was then that Time patriarch Henry Luce began considering whether his company should attempt to fill that gap, at the time, many believed sports was beneath the attention of serious journalism and did not think sports news could fill a weekly magazine, especially during the winter. A number of advisers to Luce, including Life magazines Ernest Havemann, tried to kill the idea, but Luce, the goal of the new magazine was to be basically a magazine, but with sports. Launched on August 16,1954, it was not profitable and not particularly well run at first, but Luces timing was good. The popularity of sports in the United States was about to explode. The early issues of the magazine seemed caught between two opposing views of its audience, after more than a decade of steady losses, the magazines fortunes finally turned around in the 1960s when Andre Laguerre became its managing editor. A European correspondent for Time, Inc, in May 1956, Luce brought Laguerre to New York to become assistant managing editor of the magazine. He was also one of the first to sense the rise of national interest in professional football, Laguerre also instituted the innovative concept of one long story at the end of every issue, which he called the bonus piece. His genius as an editor was that he made you want to please him, Laguerre is also credited with the conception and creation of the annual Swimsuit Issue, which quickly became, and remains, the most popular issue each year. Regular illustration features by artists like Robert Riger, high school football Player of the Month awards. In 2015 Sports Illustrated purchased a group of companies and combined them to create Sports Illustrated Play. The magazines photographers also made their mark with innovations like putting cameras in the goal at a hockey game, by 1967, the magazine was printing 200 pages of fast color a year, in 1983, SI became the first American full-color newsweekly

12.
USA Today
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USA Today is an internationally distributed American daily middle-market newspaper that serves as the flagship publication of its owner, the Gannett Company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15,1982, it operates from Gannetts corporate headquarters on Jones Branch Drive in McLean, Virginia and it is printed at 37 sites across the United States and at five additional sites internationally. USA Today is distributed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with an international edition distributed in Canada, Asia and the Pacific Islands, Gannett formally announced the launch of the paper on April 20,1982. USA Today began publishing on September 15,1982, initially launching in the Baltimore and Washington, on July 2,1984, the newspaper switched from a largely black-and-white to a color publication, featuring full color photography and graphics in all four sections. On April 8,1985, the paper published its first special bonus section, a 12-page section called Baseball 85, on May 6,1986, USA Today began printing production of its international edition in Switzerland. On April 15, USA Today launched an international printing site. On August 28,1995, an international publishing site was launched in Frankfurt, Germany, to print. On October 4,1999, USA Today began running advertisements on its front page for the first time. The paper launched a sixth printing site for its international edition on May 15,2000, in Milan, Italy, followed on July 10 by the launch of a printing facility in Charleroi. That November, USA Today migrated its operations from Gannetts previous corporate headquarters in Arlington, in 2010, USA Today launched the USA Today API for sharing data with partners of all types. On August 27,2010, USA Today announced that it would undergo a reorganization of its newsroom and it also announced that the paper would shift its focus away from print and place more emphasis on its digital platforms and launch of a new publication called USA Today Sports. On September 14,2012, USA Today underwent the first major redesign in its history, to accomplish this goal, Gannett migrated its newspaper and television station websites to the Presto platform and the USA Today site design throughout 2013 and 2014. On January 4,2014, USA Today acquired the book and film review website, on September 3,2014, USA Today announced that it would lay off roughly 70 employees in a restructuring of its newsroom and business operations. In October 2014, USA Today and OpenWager Inc. entered into a partnership to release a Bingo app called USA TODAY Bingo Cruise, USA Today is known for synthesizing news down to easy-to-read-and-comprehend stories. In the main edition circulated in the United States and some Canadian cities, each consists of four sections, News, Money, Sports. The international edition of the paper features two sections, News and Money in one, with Sports and Life in the other, atypical of most daily newspapers, the paper does not print on Saturdays and Sundays, the Friday edition serves as the weekend edition. USA Today prints each complete story on the front page of the section with the exception of the cover story. The cover story is a story that requires a jump

13.
Business Week
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Bloomberg Businessweek is an American weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L. P. Businessweek was founded in 1929, the magazine was created to provide information and interpretation about what was happening in the business world and it is headquartered in New York City. Megan Murphy was appointed editor of the magazine in November 2016, Businessweek was first published in September 1929, weeks before the stock market crash of 1929. The magazine provided information and opinions on what was happening in the world at the time. Businessweek was originally published to be a resource for business managers, however, in the 1970s, the magazine shifted its strategy and added consumers outside of the business world. Since 1975, Businessweek has carried more annual advertising pages than any magazine in the United States. Stephen B. Shepard served as editor-in-chief from 1984 until 2005 when he was chosen to be the dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Under Shepard, Businessweeks readership grew to more than six million in the late 1980s and he was succeeded by Stephen J. Adler of The Wall Street Journal. Businessweek suffered a decline during the recession as advertising revenues fell one-third by the start of 2009. In July 2009, it was reported that McGraw-Hill was trying to sell Businessweek and had hired Evercore Partners to conduct the sale. Because of the liabilities, it was suggested that it might change hands for the nominal price of $1 to an investor who was willing to incur losses turning the magazine around. In late 2009, Bloomberg L. P. bought the magazine—for a reported price between $2 million to $5 million plus assumption of liabilities—and renamed it Bloomberg BusinessWeek. It is now believed McGraw-Hill received the high end of the price, at $5 million. Currently, the magazine still loses $30 million per year, about half of the $60 million it was reported losing in 2009, Adler resigned as editor-in-chief and was replaced by Josh Tyrangiel, who had been deputy managing editor of Time magazine. In early 2010, the title was restyled Bloomberg Businessweek as part of a redesign. Megan Murphy is the editor of the magazine in the eight years of Bloomberg ownership. The magazine is losing between $20-$30 million a year. The magazine is to undergo changes in the second quarter of 2017

Sports betting
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Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome. Sports bettors place their wagers either legally, through a bookmaker/sportsbook, the term book being a reference to the books used by wagebrokers to track wagers, payouts, and debts. They take bets up-front, meaning the bettor must pay the sportsbook be

1.
Betting on the Favorite, an 1870 engraving published in Harper's Weekly

2.
Joseph J. "Sport" Sullivan was an American bookmaker and gambler from Boston, Massachusetts who helped to initiate the 1919 Black Sox Scandal.

NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament
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The tournament was created in 1939 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and was the idea of Ohio State University coach Harold Olsen. Played mostly during March, it has one of the most famous annual sporting events in the United States. The tournament teams include champions from 32 Division I conferences, and 36 teams which are award

1.
The University of Dayton Arena, which has hosted all First Four games since the round's inception in 2011, as well as its precursor, the single "play-in" game held from 2001 to 2010

2.
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship

3.
The NABC Championship Trophy

4.
NCAA-style trophies for various sports as seen at UCLA.

United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean,

1.
Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764

2.
Flag

3.
The signing of the Mayflower Compact, 1620.

4.
The Declaration of Independence: the Committee of Five presenting their draft to the Second Continental Congress in 1776

NCAA Division I
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Division I is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States. This level was called the University Division of the NCAA, in contrast to the lower level College Division. For football only, Division I was further subdivided in 1978 into Division I-A, Division I-AA, in 20

1.
Main logo used by the NCAA in Divisions I, II, and III.

College basketball
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The history of basketball is traced back to a YMCA International Training School, known today as Springfield College, located in Springfield, Massachusetts. The date of the first formal basketball game played at the Springfield YMCA Training School under Naismiths rules is generally given as December 21,1891, Basketball began to spread to college c

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A map of all NCAA Division I basketball teams.

ESPN
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ESPN is a U. S. -based global cable and satellite sports television channel owned by ESPN Inc. a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the Hearst Corporation. ESPN broadcasts primarily from studio facilities located in Bristol, Connecticut, the network also operates offices in Miami, New York City, Seattle, Charlotte, and Los Angeles. J

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ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut

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ESPN

CBS Sports
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CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on West 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City and its premier sports properties are the NFL, Southeastern Conference football, NCAA basketball, and PGA golf, including The Masters, and the PGA Championship. The online arm of

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CBS Sports lead play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz, 2001

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Official logo

Fox Sports
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These assets are held mainly by 21st Century Fox, with the exception of the operations in Australia, which are part of News Corp Australia. The name originates from the Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, the Fox Sports name has since been used in 21st Century Foxs and News Corps other sports media assets around the world. Fox Sports Int

Smithsonian (magazine)
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Smithsonian is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. The first issue was published in 1970, Thompson would later recall that his philosophy for the new magazine was that it would stir curiosity in already receptive minds. It would deal with history as it is relevant to the present and it would present ar

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Smithsonian

Sports Illustrated
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Sports Illustrated is an American sports media franchise owned by Time Inc. Its self-titled magazine has over 3 million subscribers and is read by 23 million people each week and it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice. Its swimsuit issue, which has published since

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The first issue of Sports Illustrated, showing Milwaukee Braves star Eddie Mathews at bat and New York Giants catcher Wes Westrum in Milwaukee County Stadium

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Mark Ford, President of the Sports Illustrated Group in 2010

USA Today
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USA Today is an internationally distributed American daily middle-market newspaper that serves as the flagship publication of its owner, the Gannett Company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15,1982, it operates from Gannetts corporate headquarters on Jones Branch Drive in McLean, Virginia and it is printed at 37 sites across the United States a

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The April 14, 2015 front page of USA Today. The blue circle of the logo has been turned into a dotted ring with a hat being tossed into it to signify Marco Rubio's announcement that he is running for President of the United States.

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USA Today

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This February 5, 2009 issue of USA Today shows the old layout and logo of the paper prior to it being redesigned in 2012.

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USA Today is headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia.

Business Week
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Bloomberg Businessweek is an American weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L. P. Businessweek was founded in 1929, the magazine was created to provide information and interpretation about what was happening in the business world and it is headquartered in New York City. Megan Murphy was appointed editor of the magazine in November 2016,

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United States President Barack Obama filled out his picks for the NCAA Men's Division I Tournament. He picked North Carolina to win the National Championship when he shared his "Barack-etology" with ESPN 's Andy Katz on March 18, 2009. The other teams in his Final Four were Pittsburgh, Louisville, and Memphis. President Obama correctly picked one team, North Carolina, in the Final Four and winning the national title.

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2009 Final Four logo

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Ford Field was the host of the 2009 Final Four and Championship game.